Michelin’s decision to phase out the Green Star during 2026 has sparked conversation across the dining scene. As the classification re-imagines, Thailand’s restaurants offer thoughts on why the conversation is changing and Koktail Thailand weighs in on the new “Restaurant mindful gastronomy leaders”.

When Michelin introduced the Green Star in 2020, it felt like the beginning of a movement on where the restaurant world was heading. Suddenly, conversations about farming, food waste, local sourcing and environmental responsibility were being had side-by-side with cooking abilities and service.

Over the past six years, the Green Star became more than another symbol in the Guide. For many restaurants, including several in Thailand, it represented years of ongoing work behind the scenes. Relationships with farmers. Seasonal cooking. Investment in local produce. A different way of thinking about hospitality.

So when Michelin announced in May 2026 that the Green Star would gradually be phased out, people naturally wondered why.

The Guide says it is now moving toward a new platform called Mindful Voices, focused more on stories and individuals connected to sustainability and hospitality. It is a noticeable shift, and one that raises interesting questions, especially here in Thailand where a number of restaurants have embraced sustainability in their own way. The conversation is both about whether Michelin has made the right decision, and also about credibility as it is discontinuing what it used to have, and whether sustainability in dining was ever something that could be measured through a single symbol in the first place.

Thailand’s Green Star Community

Thailand’s Green Star journey officially began with PRU in Phuket, which became the country’s first restaurant to receive the distinction. Located within the Trisara resort, PRU had already built a strong reputation around its locavore philosophy long before sustainability became a major talking point at Michelin. Under chef Jimmy Ophorst, the restaurant focused on ingredients sourced within Thailand, working closely with farmers, fishermen, growers and foragers across the country. Rather than treating sustainability as a trend, PRU built its identity around it from the beginning.

For PRU, Thailand’s first Green Star recipient, the recognition carried significance beyond the restaurant itself.

Jimmy Ophorst, chef, partner and co-founder of PRU, says the award helped shine a spotlight on Phuket’s food culture and the network of local producers that the restaurant has worked with since the beginning.

“We will forever hold a deep sense of gratitude for being named Thailand’s first ever Michelin Green Star recipient. The impact of this recognition stretched far beyond our dining room, bringing global attention to Phuket’s rich culinary heritage and empowering the local community we work alongside every day.”

While he admits there is sadness in seeing the distinction disappear, Ophorst views the change as part of a broader evolution in the sustainability conversation.

“Although it is sad to see this chapter come to a close, we embrace this change with open hearts, hoping it paves the way for a more resilient and sustainable tomorrow. The journey doesn’t end here, and we look forward to this next chapter.”

By Michelin Thailand Guide 2023 (in partnership with the Tourist Authority of Thailand), the Green Star community had expanded by adding Haoma and Jampa. Haoma brought sustainability directly into Bangkok’s urban dining scene through urban farming, aquaponics and waste reduction, while Jampa became known for its ingredient driven cooking, open fire techniques and low waste philosophy.

Koktail previously explored Jampa’s sustainability philosophy in 2023 as part of Culinary Gems of Thailand Season 2. During the episode, Koktail visited the restaurant to speak with chef Rick Dingen about his zero waste approach to cooking, close relationships with local farming communities and the farm to fork philosophy that has become central to Jampa’s identity. The episode offered an early look at how sustainability was already becoming a defining conversation within Thailand’s dining scene. Watch the full interview here.

In 2024, J’AIME by Jean-Michel Lorain joined the Green Star recognition, bringing a different perspective through refined French cuisine and thoughtful sourcing approach, although the restaurant has since closed.

In more recent years, Thailand’s Green Star awardees grew further with the addition of Baan Tepa and, most recently, GOAT in Bangkok, bringing the total number of Green Star restaurants in Thailand to six over the years. What made these restaurants interesting was that approaches differed. Some focused on farming and sourcing, others on biodiversity, urban agriculture, waste reduction and others on preserving local food systems. Sustainability was interpreted differently depending on the restaurant, its location and its philosophy, which perhaps explains why the category eventually became too difficult for Michelin to credibly define consistently on a global scale.

Why the Green Star Mattered

Unlike the other Michelin stars, which focus primarily on cooking, the Green Star attempted to recognise a restaurant’s wider relationship with the environment, sourcing and local communities. Restaurants that received the distinction often invested heavily in areas that diners may not recognise on the plate. This included working with small farmers, reducing waste, growing produce on site, supporting biodiversity and adapting menus to local seasons.

In Thailand, where many chefs already work closely with local ingredients and producers, the Green Star gave international visibility to a limited few while widespread practices that had long existed in different forms went unrecognised for many. 

The Difficulty of Measuring Sustainability

Judging cooking standards is difficult, but sustainability needs much more than a visit to a restaurant to assess and compare fairly.

A small countryside restaurant and a luxury city venue operate under completely different conditions. Access to ingredients, staffing, logistics and financial resources all affect what is realistically possible.

There is also the question of visibility. Some restaurants communicate their sustainability work clearly to guests and media. Others quietly practise similar ideas without building a public narrative around them. As sustainability became more common across fine dining, the challenge for Michelin, and others that make a profit from rating restaurants, may have been deciding where the line should be drawn. If more restaurants naturally adopt responsible sourcing and waste reduction, does sustainability remain a separate category or simply become part of what defines a good restaurant today?

A Conversation Beyond Sponsored Restaurant Guides

Michelin’s decision has naturally sparked discussion within the restaurant world, including here in Thailand. After all, the Green Star was introduced with significant attention in 2020 as a symbol of the industry’s future, only to be questioned just a few years later.

Chef Parkorn “Tan” Kosiyabong of GOAT, one of Thailand’s newest Green Star recipients, takes a measured view of the change.

“I don’t really see it in a positive or negative way,”

he says.

“I still don’t know exactly why Michelin decided to remove it, but I’m sure they have their reasons. Perhaps sustainability is becoming something that should be a minimum requirement for restaurants rather than a separate category.”

He also believes the challenge of evaluating sustainability may have played a role.

“It is quite difficult to inspect and compare fairly,”

he says.

“Different restaurants operate under different circumstances, so it may be harder to judge consistently.”

For GOAT, sustainability was never something adopted to win recognition.

“The restaurant wasn’t created to get a Green Star. Sustainability has been part of my thinking since I was young because my mother cared deeply about issues like global warming and reducing our impact on the planet. It has always been part of the mindset of the restaurant and everyone who works here.”

He explains that many of the restaurant’s sustainability practices existed long before they were communicated publicly.

“We’ve only really been talking about these things for the last couple of years. Before that we were simply doing them. I always felt there was a risk of it becoming greenwashing if we talked too much about it. We preferred to focus on doing the work.”

That work extends far beyond sourcing ingredients. GOAT incorporates fermentation, detailed waste separation and creative reuse of by-products throughout its kitchen operations.

“We try to use as much creativity and brainpower as possible when it comes to waste management. If there are ingredients we haven’t found a way to use properly, we sit down and brainstorm solutions. Fermentation plays a big role in that. It helps us manage waste, enhances flavour, creates complexity and helps build the restaurant’s identity.

It’s also about mindset.Every station carefully separates peels, skins, seeds, cores and trimmings, and everyone on the team understands why we’re doing it. We’re doing it for the future, because we all share the same planet. I try to make sure the team understands that from the beginning, so sustainability doesn’t feel like extra work on top of cooking. It’s simply part of how we think and operate as a restaurant.”

In Thailand, the Green Star has brought together restaurants with very different interpretations of sustainability rather than a single shared model. Each has developed its own approach based on location, philosophy and resources. There was never one clear formula, which may also have made the category increasingly difficult to define for Michelin as more restaurants naturally adopted similar practices.

At the same time, sustainability itself was never a niche idea within fine dining. Conversations around seasonality, responsible sourcing and environmental awareness have become far more common across restaurants of all styles and scales. The question now may not simply be whether Michelin should re-name the Green Star, but whether sustainability has evolved into something too broad and complex to fit neatly into a single distinction at all. 

At the time of writing Michelin has just announced its Florida USA selections and the Green star now represents “Restaurant mindful gastronomy leaders”. That’s quite a mouthful and one wonders if this category definition can survive longer than its predecessor. .